‘The Impossible’ Screenwriter Signs With Verve

EXCLUSIVE:Grant Nieporte, best known as the scribe of Will Smith’s film Seven Pounds, has signed with Verve. Nieporte is currently writing The Impossiblefor 2oth Century Fox and Miracles From Heaven producer DeVon Franklin. The pic tells the miraculous, true story of 14-year-old John Smith, who drowned in Lake St. Louis (outside of St. Charles, MO) and was dead for nearly an hour. CPR was performed 27 minutes to no avail. Then Smith’s mother, Joyce, entered the room, praying loudly, and all of a sudden her son had a pulse. She then wrote a book about it and Fox and Franklin picked it up.

Nieporte is also co-producing Hope Heals with Ian Bryce, which is currently in development. Sony bought the feature pitch from writing duo Bob Smiley and Justin Hensley based on the memoir Hope Heals: A True Story Of Overwhelming Loss And Overcoming Love authored by Katherine and Jay Wolf.